Barbara Cleverly - Strange Images of Death

‘ Rosa gallica, Rosa mundi, Rosa damascena … ’ Jacquemin pointed out the ones he could identify. ‘My grandmother’s dining room was lined with Redouté’s best. I spent many a boring Sunday lunch memorizing the names.’

‘And here’s one I know,’ said Martineau. ‘Hard to tell in black and white but I think that’s the white rose of Provence.’

‘She made an excursion to a Cistercian abbey near here. It has a collection of old roses,’ said Nathan.

Jacquemin was beginning to paw the ground with impatience.

‘There were six more exposures,’ said Nathan, suddenly serious. He snapped them out one at a time in a row. Again, each print had a number in the corner.

‘Great heavens!’ Martineau broke the stunned silence. ‘Shall I go and bring her in, sir?’ ‘Wait! Wait! I think our friend Jacoby has something more he wishes to impart? Go, on, man, we’re listening.’

* * *

‘Number thirteen is a shot of the chapel. Taken from the side nearest the dry moat-the east. Probably taken from a balanced position halfway down the far slope. An unusual perspective but out of sight of the rest of the castle.

And, looking at the shadows, you can see that the sun is in the south-west and getting low. What we have here is an-accidental? experimental? — essay in contre jour. I think, gentlemen, if you go and scramble about in the moat on the far side of the chapel at just before six this afternoon, you’ll see exactly the same shadow lines.

‘Number fourteen is interesting for its detail. The camera has now moved a few yards on towards the corner and is pointing across the south side of the chapel and over the courtyard. If you look carefully you can just get a glimpse of the stable clock in the distance, between two roof lines. I wonder if this was intended?’

Martineau selected a magnifying glass from a tray on the counter and handed it to the Commissaire.

‘It’s saying six o’clock, near as dammit,’ confirmed Jacquemin.

‘Next up is number fifteen. An unfussy view of the great door. Clearly we go through it and here we have, at number sixteen, a shot of the table-top tomb.’

‘We’re being taken for a walk,’ Martineau observed.

‘Let’s hope it’s not a ride,’ muttered Joe.

‘And the tomb, you’ll see, has only one occupant which dates and times the photographs quite narrowly. Sir Hugues is lying there by himself next to the rough patch of stone where his wife had previously lain. But it’s numbers seventeen and eighteen that are the clinchers, I think you’ll agree?’

‘Good God!’ breathed Martineau. ‘Are they the same? Have you done two prints from one exposure, Jacoby?’

‘No, he hasn’t. They’re different. Very slightly,’ said Jacquemin with benefit of magnifying glass. ‘A whisker of a difference in angle. And again, Jacoby, we must ask-intentional? I’d say they’re separated by a second or two. No more … Very similar to the Ermanox set we’ve just seen. Look at the blood pattern. She’s not play-acting. She’s definitely dead. Can you enlarge the wound area, Jacoby? From such a film?’

Nathan produced further reproductions of the last two shots. ‘I thought you might need these.’

Martineau peered again. ‘Ah, yes! I thought I could just make out … The blood … Here, Sandilands, take a look. There’s a greater quantity on the second of these shots. Not much but enough to make it out. And unless our friend here has been working some of his magic …?’

Nathan looked aggrieved and shook his head vehemently.

‘It’s caught a highlight. The blood’s still shining. These shots were taken moments, seconds, after the girl was stabbed. While the heart was pumping its last. While she was still expiring.’

A silence fell and, in the hot room, three men shivered.

Martineau spoke first in a deadly voice: ‘Now shall I go and get her, sir?’

‘In a moment. We’ll definitely have a few questions to put to Sweet Cecily but, if I’m not mistaken, Mr Jacoby has a further point to make?’

Joe was sure that Jacquemin had seen the truth as quickly as he had himself and was, with unexpected generosity, allowing Nathan to take the stage again to give his expert opinion. Or to check his own conclusion.

‘The first set I showed you-Joe’s efforts followed by mine-made it quite clear that the hand holding the camera, the eye behind the lens, is always individual. I can see the differences in style as clearly as one artist can identify another by his brush strokes. It’s like handwriting. But it only works when you’re familiar with the photographers, of course. Here, I’m working in the dark. I assume the first five to have been taken by Cecily. Careless, expecting the camera to do all the work. Jolly snaps for the album. Really-she’d have been better off with a five guinea Kodak. The next group, the flowers, showed an improvement. Learning had occurred. Perhaps she finds it easier to get the measure of inanimate objects? But the last six-’

‘Were taken by someone different!’ exclaimed Martineau. ‘Even I can see that! They’re not perfect … I mean, they’re not a professional job like Mr Jacoby’s but they’re well focused up and framed and … well … not arty, but sort of businesslike. By someone used to holding a camera and the right sort of brain to operate it.’

‘And the cool nerve of a sniper,’ Joe added.

‘Are we thinking: Cecily Somerset? Most probably not. Ask the lady politely to meet me in the office in ten minutes, will you, Martineau? And tell her nothing of this. I’m sure we’ll all be interested to hear her answer when I ask her to whom she lent her apparatus on the day of the murder,’ said Jacquemin.

Cecily stood in front of the desk, facing up to the Commissaire and Joe, while Martineau sat in an opposite corner of the room taking notes.

In a swift discussion on the way down, the two officers had come to an agreement on technique. The Commissaire was to be obviously in charge of the interrogation, directing his English confrère. He made it clear to Joe that he wished to appear remote, implacable, dangerously foreign. Joe’s: ‘Oh, I say-are you sure you can you pull that off?’ had received the frozen stare.

The interview was to be conducted by Joe in English. The Commissaire’s knowledge of the language was perfectly adequate for an understanding but he shied away from the notion of speaking it himself. ‘We must catch every nuance,’ he declared. ‘And Miss Somerset’s French is worse than my English. We will see how we get on.’

‘Yes, Sandilands, I can identify that camera as mine,’ stated Cecily, pointing to the Leica on the desk in front of her. ‘ Again ! It can tell you itself-look at the name on the strap. Come off it, Commander! I’ve done all this already. For that Frenchman.’ She glared at Jacquemin. ‘Is he deaf? Or just being French? Shall I shout louder?’

‘Just a formality, Miss Somerset,’ Joe said mildly. ‘Imagine you’re in Scotland Yard, will you? Helping the police with a very tricky enquiry. Lieutenant, a chair for the lady, please.’

Cecily lowered her dungareed bulk on to the chair with a suspicious glower that was meant to tell Joe she’d got his number and that English smarm was as unwelcome as French froideur.

‘And this is how you can help us.’

He laid out the first twelve shots from her camera and invited her to inspect them.

A few moments of: ‘Good gracious, I never thought you’d be able to do it! Develop them right here on the spot. I was going to take the camera back to London with me and have them done properly. I say, I won’t pay for these, you know … Oh, the roses came out well, didn’t they? However did you manage …?’